


Unseen Cues

by Skeren



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Bucky Barnes Has Issues, Child Murder, Fluff, Gen, HYDRA is filled with Opportunistic Assholes, Human Experimentation, Implied/Referenced Abuse, Multiple Personalities, Pre-Serum Steve Rogers, Red Room, Serum Side Effects, So much being inside Bucky's head, Steve Has No Clue, Torture, World War II
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-28
Updated: 2016-03-16
Packaged: 2018-05-23 19:28:50
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 11
Words: 15,467
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6127655
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Skeren/pseuds/Skeren
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The Winter Soldier was not what Steve believed it was.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Framework

**Author's Note:**

> Okay! I had a different note here but it no longer applies. Now I will just say this: This is my first multi chapter Avengers story.
> 
> This first chapter was set up as a one-shot, and can be read as a prologue of sorts, with the rest of the chapters progressing in timeline order.

The Winter Soldier was not what Steve believed it was.

This was a fact, irrefutable, solid, and at the core of everything, it was the gaping chasm that meant that there wasn't a Bucky to go home the way that the man so desperately wanted to think there was. The Asset knew that. _James_ knew that.

Steve... Steve wouldn't understand, and seemed to have forgotten one of the things he'd been told about how the Serum worked in the first place.

The Serum only intensified what was already inside you. 

Schmidt turned red, hideous, power grasping. Steve grew, beautiful, emotional, solid in his ideals. Even Banner, retiring and raging by turns, ended up with another piece to himself entirely, angry, confused, but good, playful.

They all had the Serum. They all _changed_.

Bucky had been given the Serum too. Yes, it was butchered, different, but every version of the Serum was like that. Every version of the Serum was different, and left a mark, a change in the wake of application. 

So what was his? It wasn't on his skin, it wasn't the color of his eyes or body, it wasn't growing taller or healthier, it wasn't _anything_ that was noticed before the fall.

On the outside.

But Banner had two halves of himself. Banner was two in one who were both irrevocably _himself_ at their core.

Banner's was visible, written on his skin and his mind both, so people didn't doubt it, never thought to check for it because it was always obvious.

Bucky had never been someone who was obvious. Bucky had been a protector who popped up when his idiot friend needed him. Bucky had been charming and brilliant, but a helper, backup, the one in the shadows. Bucky had been that guy with the rifle and the farseeing eye, who only got up close to protect whatever person, mainly Steve once he appeared in the war, just so happened to need him to step in.

Bucky had everything that made the Winter Soldier already written across his very being before he ever left the shores of the United States the first time, and Steve _could not see_. 

He was gone. Bucky had started to falter, and fall, before he'd ever seen Steve again. Steve had not been told, had thought that the change was only his. 

But Steve had never been observant enough with people outside fights, and that was the problem, ultimately.

Because Steve did not notice that the Winter Soldier stirred on a lab table in the Alps, had only thought that the quiet was a side effect of his _trauma_.

While he was not wrong, he was also not right. 

But Bucky, who had not yet entirely vanished, who was still holding the two halves of who he was together and hiding it well enough, even from himself, did not tell. Bucky, who had wanted to believe that everything was _fine_ , hid it, admirably so even, and started the trend that was the rest of his life by doing so.

He did not tell, and James did not want to be the one to inform Steve that he was gone now, that Seventy Years and a chasm that spanned too many deaths lay between the two of them. 

And the Asset had no idea how to _explain_.

So, instead, he ran.


	2. Foundation

Bucky Barnes was a man who knew who he was. He was dashing, great with the ladies, and the best friend of the most ridiculous punk that ever lived. 

That last point was probably the fact that would send him to an early grave from worry, admittedly, but it was still part of who he _was_. Especially given that he had maybe gotten a month, tops, of time at any one point without needing to wade into a fight to rescue said punk since meeting the guy.

This month was not that month. In fact, if he was honest with himself, the longer the war overseas went on, the more alert to tension Steve seemed to get, which meant that he picked more fights and was more sensitive to insults flying on the street. It was enough to make a guy want to rip his hair out, if he was being honest about the whole thing, but he knew he'd be wasting his breath if he tried to get the little idiot to _stop_. Not that he didn't anyway, but he was more than allowed to waste his breath if he wanted to.

Today had been another day like that. Hell, the whole week had been a week like that, and the whispers about a possible draft in the air only made the situation worse.

They both knew even a draft wouldn't pick Steve up, and where Bucky had no particular _desire_ to go into battle, he was also vividly aware that if he didn't go, he'd probably be dragged anyway. Draftees probably wouldn't get the same consideration as those who'd had a choice about it, and they definitely wouldn't get the same _rank_ options. He was a realist. He knew that if he didn't get his ass in gear he'd probably have cause to regret it. He might not have cause to regret it _long_ , given how many people were already not coming _back_ but letters about their status were, but he suspected he would, which meant he needed to do something about it so he _wouldn't._

First though, he had to find a spare minute where he wasn't dabbing blood off of Steve's face like he'd been off to doctor school instead and making sure the punk wasn't otherwise about to keel over. "You know Stevie, if I didn't know better I'd start to think that you just liked the taste of blood."

The look he got back for his commentary was hardly new. In fact, it was an almost sullen sort of stubbornness, though the little blond didn't move _away_. The fact he was even holding still with so little fuss meant he probably had some doozies under his clothes if it was keeping him this calm about being fussed over. "He was insultin' little girl Ruth's mom. She's a swell lady doin what she can, so I couldn't just let him get away with it."

"So you felt you had to step up and go a few rounds to remind him to behave did you?" The words were more of a fond sigh than anything, and he just shook his head, taping a bit of bandage carefully along Steve's cheek to keep him from bleeding anymore. "Figures. Not that I don't admire your resolve punk, but you couldn't have held off until I could help ya? My shift couldn't have been over too long after all this or you would've bled more."

The sullen look turned into a scowl, and he settled back on his heels, looking over the blond for any other injuries while he still had everything out. Usually, it was just bruises, for which he was eternally grateful. Even if the guy did look like he could be broken in half with one hand, he was sturdy enough when it came down to it. "I had it! Alright? Just. It was fine, and I didn't even need rescued. I think I even bloodied up his face too before he got me down so we're square. You don't need to go all mother hen on me."

Bucky snorted at that, rolling his eyes before getting to his feet. "I'll believe that one the day I see it. If I don't mother hen you, no one will, and then where will you be?" His tone went particularly dry then, and he started to gather up the stuff he'd used to tend his face. "Oh _right_ , flat on your back in a back alley where you had another 'chat' with someone bigger'n you. Sounds like a perfect plan there Stevie. Gonna give me another?"

"That's not true! I would've gotten home on my own just fine if you hadn't found me Buck. I'm not _helpless_." 

"Course you're not, but a guy has to take care of his fella." They shared an extended moment of eye contact at that one, and Bucky knew by the growing look of dismay on Steve's face that his own must have been showing his humor over the whole thing as well as his concern. Which was good. Steve always got up in arms when he thought someone was calling him useless, and he never wanted to be the cause of that. 

It never failed to crack him up when Steve went red because of light flirting either, and this time was no exception. They both knew it wasn't serious, but it still served to derail conversations nicely. "Bucky! Agh, why do you always gotta go and do that? I was being serious."

He sobered, reaching to put his hand on his head once he was done putting everything away, meeting his eyes again, his own a bit more sober. "Yeah, yeah, I know. You can take care of yourself. I didn't forget, and believe me or not, I definitely believe _you_. Maybe I'm just the kind of guy who wants to make sure that his best friend is gonna be around for a long time, alright?"

His words drew a grimace out of the blond, but he also slumped, batting at his wrist to get his hand off his head. "Yeah, okay fine. You go an' act like my ma s'more and I'll just be over here workin on that drawing job I got the other day." 

Bucky eyed him up for a moment, then gave a sharp nod and backed off, satisfied that his friend was actually not upset and things could settle down. "Perfect. I'm gonna work on food then."

He earned himself an eye roll for that one, but it wasn't like the blond was going to argue. Between the two of them, he was the better cook anyway.

More practice.

* * *

It was another week before he managed to get enough of a breather to make his way to an enlistment office, and it was just about as bad as he expected. Everyone going in was nervous, full of bravado, or insane. He could tell the last ones right off, because they usually seemed _excited_ about the whole thing. There weren't a lot of people, compared to a couple places he'd seen, but it was still more than he'd really expected to see at this time of day, with everyone working the hours people did these days. 

Maybe that said more about the whole situation than he wanted to admit, if he wasn't the only guy seeing the signs and trying to be proactive about everything. He remembered a couple years before, passing one of these places and not seeing _anybody_ , so it wasn't like everyone was just raring to be military either.

If he was honest with himself, it was kind of terrifying that the worry was so thick in the air, but it wasn't like he could _not_ do something while he could still make a choice about it, so he forced himself to go through the motions, and fill in all the blanks for the questions he was asked by the people in charge. He didn't like it, sure, and he wouldn't have bothered at all if he thought he had a chance in hell of avoiding it altogether, but when it all came right down to it, he had Steve to think about.

If he didn't go on his own, the chances of him coming back to his best friend at the end of it all went down, and so did any money he could send back to do at least _something_ while he was over there. So here he was, papers in hand as his feet hit the street, and he found himself just staring at them. He had no idea how to tell Steve about this, not really. He wasn't oblivious to the fact his blond menace had tried himself, only the once, admittedly, but he'd still given it a go, and he'd been shot down. 

He didn't want to rub it in his face. 

That thought had him grimacing, and the papers ended up shoved in his pocket, carefully folded as they were, before he headed off for home.

At the very least, he knew he wasn't really going anywhere yet. Sure, he had to go get training, but that was next week, and then he'd be back and could pick up a couple jobs until he was shipped out. Who knew, maybe he'd work it out and manage to claw some ranks out of this situation before having to go anywhere. If he was _really_ lucky, everything would blow over and he'd never have to leave the States at all.

Not that he held out a lot of hope for that one, of course, but it was worth a thought.

As was figuring out how to break all this to Steve before it was too last minute to do it nicely. 

Baking something would probably go pretty far to soften anything he had to say, if he was looking for a way to head off an upset. Not that he was particularly good at baking, but they still had a little flour. He could work with that. 

Or he could just bother his sister instead for some of _her_ cooking to take home...

Nope. He knew better.

He'd done nothing wrong, so there was no need to treat it like an apology. 

Baking it was.

He just hoped the results were a bit more edible than last time.


	3. War

War is terrible. 

He'd known that, before he ever got there, he'd known that, but it still wasn't as he'd thought. 

There is such a difference between knowing and _knowing_. 

It was terrible over here. He'd been idealistic, thinking that when he went, if he chose to go instead of being forced, would make any difference once he was there. It didn't. It didn't make a bit of difference to anyone, because once you were on the field it was just blood and death and the deafening drum of gunfire. It was brutal. It meant that you couldn't breathe, or rest, or do anything but move, and fight, and guard the backs of the people around you.

That, at least, he was good at. He could guard his fellow soldiers, he could pull them out of the line of fire, he could shove people down to get them out of sight of the enemy, he could yank people away from bombs. 

But it wasn't enough. 

People kept _dying_. They would bring more, and there would be a turnover from one group to the next, young and idealistic, and so very very _frightened_. 

It made him ache all the way down to his soul to see them and be able to do _nothing_. But he tried. He comforted and joked and did everything in his power to keep morale up, to keep people from _giving_ up. Somehow, he became the stable officer, the only person with the rank and the presence both to keep everyone moving. The soldiers in the 107th somehow became his, ending up his responsibility when other officers, higher ranked ones, didn't last long enough to pick up the slack.

That meant that he had to be more alert, more ready, than others around him because if he faltered, the people around him would falter. He had to be strong in the face of tears and panic and just _keep them moving_. It didn't matter if he dreamed of blood, and ash, and being unable to breathe for the thickness of the air. It didn't matter that he couldn't get the report of gunfire to stop inside his head even when there was none. 

It only mattered that he knew the difference, what was in his head and what was real. It only mattered that he didn't falter and fall, or freeze at a time that would leave more people at risk. That was the important part. It didn't matter if his sleep was broken if he got enough it left him alert. It didn't matter if the food tasted of ash if he ate enough to keep strong, and he made sure the people around him did the same. 

Nothing mattered but survival, and killing them before they could kill anyone who happened to be one of his. He perfected his aim in that hellish maelstrom, got good at picking off the other side before they could touch anyone who belonged under his care. He learned how to be attached without being so attached that the losses would leave his heart bleeding out when they died. He learned distance, and he learned how to _lead_ , because officers kept falling, and someone had to. 

He learned to do what he had to do, and he became _good_ at it, because that's what mattered. Anything else was surplus. His charm was a weapon against madness, his protective instincts a shield against death, and _that_ is what mattered in the months after he came to the front. That is what he was stripped down to, the purest version of himself, the fiercest one, because that's how he needed to be. 

And then, suddenly, that wasn't the case anymore.

Months after he'd taken up the welfare of his men, they were decisively, irrevocably, removed from his care.

This is how Bucky met the nightmare that would plague the rest of his life.

Hydra.

* * *

Nothing was the same after Steve pulled him out of that lab. 

Before he went in, he was distilled, sure, but he was still completely himself. He was stable and knew what he was about. He knew what waited for him back home. He _knew_ things with unshakable faith that he hadn't even known he needed to rely on. He'd had his family waiting, and he'd been okay with that, steady in that. He'd had people to protect that weren't in the direct line of fire like everyone else he knew. He knew who he was, who they were, and that was that.

It didn't feel like he knew anything anymore.

Staring at Steve's back now, it was different. Especially when he was so much bigger, but strangely even _more_ careless than he'd always been before when he had to think about things like asthma attacks and broken bones. It was like he'd forgotten what it was to have to take time to heal, and it made Bucky want to scream inside, though he didn't, of course. No, he knew better than that, instead poking and prodding and swatting him upside the head to remind him that he had someone there to watch out for him still.

But not the same way he used to. He wasn't at Steve's side the way he once was. He wasn't the shield in this situation anymore, the guy who had to make sure that the bigger guy didn't beat down the littler one. He wasn't the strong one here, and it left him wrong-footed. It was good while being terrible, because he had to press himself to the limits to keep up, to make sure that Steve didn't get too far ahead and get killed with his ramped up recklessness. He had to watch for everything, beside and behind Steve instead of alongside and ready to lunge in front. Instead of breaking up the fights, he had to make sure to deal with them before Steve could get into a position where he thought he'd have to do it himself. 

Before that _place_ , he'd perfected his aim, but it wasn't the kind of perfect that meant he never missed. He had made mistakes, though his fellow soldiers would readily attest that he was the best anyone could ask for on their side. That wasn't true anymore, and not because he was worse. It was easier, now, even in the middle of a fight, with Steve in touching distance and him turned to the side to use that ridiculous shield for cover, to not miss. He focused better, razor sharp and frighteningly steady as he shot now, the recoil dealt with in a carelessly easy way instead of the controlled bracing it had been before. Fighting was like breathing, now, a mindset he could sidestep into, easy as could be, and seamlessly right back out again without anyone realizing that anything changed.

Some people would claim it was a sniper's focus, but he'd lived that, he _knew_ that. 

This was not that. He wanted it to be that though, so badly did he want it to be that, instead of whatever crept around the edges of his awareness when he thought about it for too long. It was another foundation crumbling under his feet, and that wasn't something he could handle. He'd had his role, and that had shifted, changed, then fell back into a familiar non-familiarity at Steve's back, chasing him like he always did and hoping for the best. Steve finally picked up the leadership that Bucky had learned in self-defence in the trenches, and while it was a relief, the idiot spent so much time running ahead that it was like it was the exact same situation all over again too.

Better, but different while not being different at all, that's what it came down to. Since he'd been at the front, he'd been leading, watching out for the men, and relaying orders where he needed to. When Steve got there, it shifted, and Steve was giving the commands, though somehow it once again fell into the same pattern, where Bucky was the one watching out for everyone even while Steve sorted out everything with command. It was absurd, but it worked, and somehow he found himself lumped neatly next to Steve as something almost like a co-commander whenever the man was busy elsewhere or had gotten too far ahead of the rest to give anyone direction himself.

It should have been comforting, the bits of familiar, but they just made the dissonance stronger instead. Steve didn't look like himself, and it took him longer than he wanted to admit to get used to it, weeks instead of the days it really should have. The new carelessness wasn't so new, in concept, but the sharp edge to it was, and it put his back up every time there was a near miss under a hail of bullets in Steve's direction.

Killing was easier than ever. 

It was war, so it wasn't as though he hadn't killed, and killed a _lot_ , but it felt different now. It brought out that odd focus, the small shift that let him see it all in practicalities instead of having his emotions whiplash back on him in his sleep to give him nightmares about what he'd done during the day, the people he'd killed and the battles he'd fought. That wasn't to say he didn't still feel things about it, he did, but it was at a remove, above and beyond what he'd learned in the war so far and unnerving because of the ease with which it came to him.

His dreams, while not happy, no longer woke him in the middle of the night. It bewildered and unsettled him, because while he hadn't exactly _liked_ his broken sleep, he'd understood it. He wasn't the only one who had it, and it was strangely comforting in its normalcy. Now, that was gone, and while he slept easily, if lightly, it was less than all of his cumulative broken sleep would have netted him before in any case. 

And he was never tired with the shortened sleep either. 

He didn't like it, didn't trust it, but after the first few months he settled into it, relaxed from his paranoia that something was _wrong_ with him because he wasn't having screaming terrors in the night. It even became a bit of a joke, among the men, that he'd wake up every time someone needed a guard to be able to sleep, but he'd never need one himself because he liked the job too much to give it up. It had made him relax about it, the first time Jim had thrown it out there, and after that he'd stopped thinking about it quite so much when it was dark out and he'd woken after too few hours of sleep. 

That didn't mean he forgot, though, because he knew instinctively that something was different about him, multiple somethings, but he couldn't point at any one thing and say 'that's abnormal' when it all came down to it. 

He didn't even want to.

If anything, he wanted to be fine, normal, _himself_ , the way he was before they'd ended up in that _place_ and things had happened, things that would probably manage to give him back his nightmares if he dared to look at them too closely. 

So he fell into step at Steve's back, protected the men, and valiantly promised himself that no matter what, he wouldn't drift any further from being the man he worried he was losing into this war than he already had. He wouldn't become a heartless killer, no matter how painless it seemed like it might be to do just that. He wouldn't forget what fear tasted like just because he could step into a mental landscape that made it seem pointless. He would keep up with Steve even if the man no longer seemed to really _need_ him anymore. 

He was Bucky Barnes. 

He would _stay_ Bucky Barnes.


	4. Awareness

Everything was pain.

It wasn't an exaggeration, or a way to glamorize his situation, it simply was. The air was like acid in his lungs, searing and raw, and the screams... he knew they were his, on some level, but he couldn't even really hear himself, because it hurt, echoing off oversensitive ears as he struggled to get more awareness, to be able to see past the blinding brightness of the room.

It wasn't working. Nothing was working, and when he tried to move, to get up, to shade his eyes, anything, he pulled against a restraint that shouldn't have been there. He met _resistance_ , and it became a struggle to breathe all over again as panic hit him, because something was pinging as wrong. More wrong.

Worse than he'd thought everything was a moment before.

He was on fire. Not real fire, but his very blood was boiling, or freezing, he wasn't at all sure, because there was a spreading sensation of ice hitting the fire, clawing it's way down from his left shoulder. 

The screams had stopped, his breathlessness in his awareness finally enough to do that, but it was no quieter, rapid Russian bombarding him too fast for him to track even if he'd had enough mind to try. No, all he wanted was to not be here, to be somewhere familiar, to _hear_ someone familiar.

Steve wasn't there, and he was glad, but confused, because he had no idea why he _would_ have been. Why he would want him with him when he went back to screaming as someone did something, the ice of his left shoulder shattering into a blinding lightning strike of agony. 

No, it was good he was alone here, but he'd really, really rather not be here.

There was a moment of stillness inside him at that thought, a desperate sort of groping for something he'd been aware of and ignored, before a blessed, desperately needed blanket of darkness wrapped around him and made him feel _safe_.

Because he really, _really_ , hadn't wanted to be there.

* * *

Bucky was not, as he seemed to believe, unconscious when he fled the pain. No, instead he'd pulled on something fledgling, incomplete, but rapidly becoming so the more it was tugged close. This time was no exception. If he'd wanted to, he'd have still been aware, have still been more than fully alert while hiding behind the shield that was this. Instead, he fled, and this was the first time that the fledgling self had been alone. 

And everything hurt. It wasn't new, not really. No, he'd been watching, and had taken more than one blow with Bucky, had learned and watched and shielded the nightmares because letting them make him weaker made no _sense_ when he had people to watch over. When being weak or slow meant someone would _die_. He understood that. He understood most of what Bucky did, since he was Bucky, just the parts that he didn't like to look too closely at, that was all.

But he was also new, and he knew screaming was useless to fight when he was in so much pain. He could feel everything more keenly than he'd ever been able to from his left arm, but it was also different, terrifying, and they kept shooting off sparks of agony that he was desperately trying to understand. 

There was no way to tell what they were doing, but he didn't like it. Then again, he couldn't fathom anyone who _would_ , and that thought was thrown rather aggressively out of his mind. He couldn't afford to waste what little thinking he had on being distracted. He needed his focus, to tune out what he could, to figure out what was going _on_. 

His veins burned because of something that was being fed into his arm on his right side. That was the source of the burning agony. Whatever they were doing on the left side was the source of the ice and lightning.

That told him absolutely nothing, but there was the niggling reminder that he'd been here before. He'd had this done to him _before_ , that tried to freeze his lungs between screams, that tried to smother his mind in some formless terror he'd learned to keep at bay.

No, not formless. Familiar. Familiar and real and _he had gotten away from it._

He fought it.

He managed to open his eyes, clenched shut against the bright light, though they were teary because he couldn't stop them from being so. He couldn't afford that. He couldn't afford to show that kind of weakness. He knew it, deep at the base of himself, he _knew_.

But he wished he hadn't opened his eyes, because when he did, he lost all hope that anything was going to be okay ever again. The first thing he saw wasn't some kind of reassuring hospital space, but something darker. Yes, the room was sterile. Yes, there were doctors moving swiftly from point to point. Yes, it was everything a hospital room should be. 

He didn't notice any of that.

All he saw was a shiny black and silver pin as someone leaned across him, alerted by his eyes opening, as they said something that was lost in a haze as the terror reared up and swallowed him. 

Hydra again.

And this time, he didn't think he'd be able to get away.


	5. Changing Tide

Something was missing.

It was something ephemeral, soft, and... precious. It was something that was gone, now, and he couldn't help but feel that maybe it was better that way, for some reason. It hadn't been torn out of him, he knew that, could feel it in his bones, but it was gone all the same.

Willingly, perhaps?

It felt willing, like he'd let it go to keep it safe. 

If he had, he didn't know what he was keeping it safe from, not really. 

He couldn't remember.

Perhaps that was what was missing? The memory of what was before? Was there even a before that belonged to him? 

If there was, did it matter?

The murmurs in his mind that said something was missing hushed at that, at the idea of trying to figure out if it mattered, or if it should return to him. Something whispered that it shouldn't. If he'd given it up willingly, then whatever it was should stay gone, for its own safety. It should stay where it could remain precious, because if he got rid of it, then obviously he did not treat the precious thing as it should be treated.

It was convoluted, thinking such things, and it made his chest ache with a strange kind of pain before he pushed the thoughts aside.

It didn't matter.

If it mattered, he wouldn't have done it. 

If it mattered again in the future, then he'd find a way to find it. Something told him he was excellent at finding things, though he knew not _why_ he would be aware of such a skill.

He couldn't remember having found anything before, so how would he do it again?

Clearly, he simply would. 

Decided, he let the feeling go, the ache for softness that he didn't understand, and for memories that were not his. 

They no longer mattered, because he had something he needed to do, and that was the most important thing.

* * *

Their being wasn't as cut and dried as the Asset attending to missions and the Soldier hiding in the back of the mind. 

If it had been, he wouldn't have been anywhere near so valuable to his owners, to those who had found him and shaped him, tucking neat corners out of the frayed edges of his mind. If he had been, then freedom might have been easy, and running might have actually meant that there was somewhere to go, and someone, _something_ , else to be.

Instead, the Soldier became the intelligence, and the Asset the defense. The Asset would brace the mind for the pain, hold them still, and let it roll over them as it reached inside and ripped away things that made missions unclear, and decisions too tempting. The Soldier would wait, and watch, and when it was clear that the handlers were gone, would be turned loose to do reconnaissance on targets, or to sneak his way into places where he needed to use charm instead of speed, stealth instead of a bloody message. The Soldier was what made them so valuable, and let the Asset be the _Asset_.

Thus, it was a surprise to them both the first time that they were addressed as more. Not directly, of course, no one ever called them anything but the asset to their face, as it probably should be, but it still took very little time before the murmurs started to circle, to make their way back to where he could hear them.

The Winter Soldier. 

It was a title, one unique to their duality, and there was a rapid sense of agreement between the pieces that made them what they were that they liked it. It was cold, and heavy, but it was freeing as well. It was neither one nor the other, but addressed both as a whole, something they badly needed as things seemed to spiral, and they were sent on ever more complex missions, with the river of blood growing ever deeper. It had a riptide, now, and being aware of it would do them no favors. 

That was another reason to like being as Winter. It gave them stable footing, ice under their feet as red as the crimson spilled behind them, but constant, perpetual even when all memories of why the river was red were brushed away with brilliantly painful fingers time after time. Winter remained, surrounding them and keeping them strong, reminding the parts of the whole of the reason and the worth.

The Asset endured while the Soldier learned, and it worked best for them, that way, because the Asset felt less, and could thus do more when his skills were needed. The Soldier felt, and could thus be convincing when people were to be tricked into thinking that he was one of them, that he was a person and not simply a gendered thing, that was, more often than not, not even so much that.

It worked for them, that dance, that passing back and forth of skills and awareness.

In fact, it would have continued to work, had it not been for the children. Not those they killed, even the Soldier, with his softer being, knew that there was no avoiding the deaths they were sent to do. No, those they both understood the need for, and they did not fight against what was needed for the cause, to shape the world in the image their handlers and keepers wished it to be. 

No, it would have been fine, as such things were, if not for the children, the _little girls_ that he was sent, not to kill, no, but to teach.

Teaching kept him free of that painful and reassuring tending that had been as constant as the turn of day and night to him. Teaching made the Asset need to retreat a few steps to let the other speak, and that gave the Soldier far too much time to consider, and think, and _be_.

It had not been safe. 

It had been a mistake.

The little girls reminded the Soldier of the softness of his heart, and what it was to have soft things, and that was when there was a shift, and the Soldier started to bleed away into another name, just a little, just _enough_ that the Asset knew it would be a terrible thing.

James. 

No more or less, but the Soldier became James. Became some _one_ instead of some _thing_.

And the Asset knew that if the handlers knew, if they ever found out, then the situation would be very ugly indeed.

From that point, the Asset was even more careful with James than before, and let him do less of his part of the missions alone when they were assigned between days of teaching the children. He made himself be more than sword and shield after that, to observe while James acted ever more as a _person_. He watched as he got _attached_ to little girls he was probably going to have to kill at least some of.

It simply redoubled his efforts of making sure that the handlers never knew, of course.

But mistakes happened.

Mistakes always happened.


	6. Crumble

Coming awake was a sharp jolt of pain and the low ache of frozen joints as ice slid away from his hair and skin.

It was also wrong, because he never stirred from the ice with memories from before it. Being woken from the ice was being born anew, his memories of the last time he'd woken, empty and ready, told him so. Told him that that had been familiar while _this time_ was wrong, was making a point. 

It was then that the quality of the sharp pain in his body, wounds that had been given no time at all to mend before be was put away, really brought him to focus. 

Brought James into focus. 

He was shattered. 

That was enough to make the Asset cringe away, but he didn't know what else to do with the man mourning behind him, hidden safely where people couldn't see because he hadn't been able to force him to _not look_ when he'd needed to. He hadn't been forceful enough with this softer being he shared a self with, and they were now both suffering for it.

He was suffering being unable to help his other self, and James was suffering dealing with _this_. He would cautiously call the sensation guilt, or grief, but it was unfamiliar to them, new in a thoroughly unpleasant way. He simply knew he did not like, nor want, it. Neither did he knew how to banish it from James, to buffer him from the sense of it. 

And this was why they'd woken with memory. 

It was a lesson. 

Do not grow attached.

Do not coset those you train.

Do not try to be _kind_.

They were giving the feelings time to settle, to become part of them, before they removed the frame. It was a sound method for training, for reminding without leaving the sentiment attached that would make it dangerous. Mercy meant punishment. Kindness meant punishment. Affection meant retribution.

Above all, attachment meant loss.

All but one of the children was dead now. By his own hands. And that, at least, had been the only _mercy_ he'd been able to offer in the face of the brutal test both they and he had been subject to. They, to do their level best to take him down. He, to either take them down, permanently, or have the awareness that the handlers would come along behind them and make the children pay for their failure, brutally, before sending them right back after him with even less chances for success.

It had only taken one round for him to learn his lesson and to be efficient instead of kind. 

James had not taken it anywhere near so well, and the Asset had had to keep him firmly under control lest he reveal himself fully and make it all even worse than it already was. 

So now, the students, the children, were gone. The survivor a lone girl who hid more than she attacked and was all the better off for it.

He knew he would probably never see her again either.

No, he knew that most especially, because when he was given to the ice, he never knew how long it would be; days, weeks, months, even _years_ , and she might as well already be dead as all the others were.

It was no consolation to James, no, but it did give them one thing.

When they were led to the chair, to be picked clean, James was the one that wanted to feel it, to absolve himself that way of the pain he didn't know how to shake.

Asset held him steady, of course, but it would be a lie to say he wasn't grateful for the reprieve. 

He needed to be the one keeping them strong now.

It was the only way they'd survive.

* * *

There were cracks in the ice that they stood on in the heart of Winter, ones that let vivid red seep up into a dark stain that followed their steps over the purity of snow that was forever swirling to cover the crimson ice underfoot. Neither of them understood it. 

James knew he was at fault, somehow, but he didn't know what it meant.

He didn't know what he'd done. 

He did know that he found himself even more cautious of the handlers, and that being given people to work with was even more difficult than it used to be. He knew that convincing people of his humanity was no longer so easy as it once was, and that the Asset had to work harder to make up for his lapses when he found himself uncertain what to do. 

He found himself with the new sensation that was a fear of failure, of knowing the taste and feel of it intimately. He didn't know why, and knew he would never dare ask his handlers if he'd failed a mission, if that was the root of his distress. Doing so was to invite a fabrication, or worse, a real failing, to be revisited on him in the form of punishment before he had it picked from his head as he was set back to new to try again. 

He _knew_ this. He knew how it worked. If you make a mistake, let your punishment be your penance and redouble your efforts to be perfect and make _no_ mistakes. 

Simple.

Clean.

Easy to understand.

He found himself strangely terrified of this reassuring constant in his life and he did not know _why_. The handlers knew best, and if he was in the wrong, then he should be corrected. He was not a person, no matter that he'd found a name that sounded like one, that he _liked_. He was still simply a part of the Winter Soldier, and the Winter Soldier was a thing that was to be controlled and used.

He _knew_ this. 

He also knew that his ongoing distress had the Asset on edge, that it made him quicker to react, quicker to retaliate where he used to be able to keep a more level sort of passivity in the face of aggression.

He knew he needed to calm himself before it got them hurt, or worse, killed.

He wouldn't put it past the handlers to find a way to revive him just to punish him properly if he damaged himself badly enough to be considered dead, after all. They could do everything else, after all, so there was no reason to think even this was beyond their reach.

Still, _still_ , it was many missions, many close calls, before he met the eyes of a young, redheaded woman, and everything that made him twist inside himself grew still. 

He shot her, of course he did, but he had no reason to shoot her to kill.

So he didn't. 

The missions after that became easy again, and he knew that the Asset was relieved. 

As was he.

That didn't mean that any of what had been lost in the meantime came back.

He wasn't, after all, a person. He had no memories to look back on and relearn habits from. He was just a title, a thing, a threat. He was what he was made to be.

If that wasn't enough, then there was really nothing that he could do about that now.


	7. Emergence

Something was different.

There was some quality to the way he was being handled that wasn't as he remembered it being, to say nothing of the fact that the language around him was no longer Russian, nor even the German it had been for a short time.

It was English.

And that was... wrong, somehow. English was not supposed to be the language that went with these people. English was the enemy, those he picked apart and was sent after. He was sure of this.

He did not know _why_ he was sure of this, what spawned his certainty, but he still knew it was true. 

Added to that, these people didn't seem to recognize that he could think, not the way he was used to at least. Not as a tactical practicality.

If anything, he was being treated more like a trained dog than the well programmed tool he was, his handlers sticking close enough to monitor him at all times, effective but watchful, vigilant in a way he wasn't at all used to. He knew it to be so, given the way that everything in him wanted to rebel over the close observation.

That urge, at least, he checked carefully, keeping it down and his urges still as he and the Asset worked it out, made sure that they only saw what they seemed to want to. 

It didn't make things simpler, not in the slightest, but it was still something that could be worked around, could keep them from making the kind of mistakes that might get them into a position they neither wanted nor could afford.

The Winter Soldier was not something that was replaceable, and that gave them room to breathe, but nothing more than that.

They still had to bend to whatever expectation was laid on them.

These new people, these English speakers, seemed to expect something to be aimed and unleashed, so that was what he would give them. He would be skilled and quiet, inhuman and objectified. He could _do_ that, and do it well enough they would never suspect he could be otherwise.

He didn't like it, of course. Neither part of him did. 

That didn't mean he was stupid enough to try to do anything about it, to slip the chains that were keeping his talents half bound just to appease what these people seemed to expect. He didn't like being observed, but that just meant that he worked harder to keep what he didn't want them to see from the surface. He didn't like being handed information like he couldn't fetch it himself, but he just accepted it with solemn gratitude while something deep in his chest hissed in resentment for the slight.

He was obedient, and perfect, and every time he woke to this again, the impatient displeasure only grew worse.

But he was patient. 

Winter was the silent blanket that destroyed everything in its wake.

He could be no less than his namesake.

* * *

When the ice of the waters in their mind shattered, neither part of him was expecting it.

They nearly drowned in the depths of it, the confusion and agony that was being submerged in bloody memories, only to touch down on something soft and warm at the heart of them, something bright.

That had been the most painful part, and the hardest to claw free from, to see it and outside at once, to have both pieces working in tandem instead of being trapped in a wild spiral that just hurt and _hurt_.

James had been the one at the surface when this happened. James had been the one furious at the mission for sending the Asset stumbling down to _drown_ in their mind by calling up the memories, the past that he'd been so carefully tucking and storing for _decades_. He'd been the one that had wanted more than anything to deal with this threat to himself, to his less emotional piece. He'd been the one that wanted to _destroy_ this man for daring to hurt them so. He'd also been the one who realized he was making a mistake.

He was the one who jumped after the man when he did. 

He was not the one who ran once the task was done. No, by then the Asset had surfaced, and James had fled into the mind, to do what he could to make sure that neither of them would drown under the intensity of everything crashing on them like a tsunami, a wave of horror and blood and torment that they'd been better off forgetting. 

The Asset had to sort out the bits and pieces that were tossed his way as somehow relevant to them now, to decide what they were going to do. He was the one who escaped into the city from the banks of the water while people were looking another way. He was the one who had to pick through unfamiliar instincts and sketchy pieces of memory to make his way to figure out how to order everything, to figure out what was when before James got lost in it.

The exhibit had not helped.

If anything, the exhibit had seemed... _wrong_.

So he'd fled that too.

Perhaps, if he'd known better, he would have known running wasn't what he should be doing. He would have known that he could return to the steady comfort of his handlers, of the surety of a clear mind and an ordered memory that did not reach near so far.

But he did not know better, did not know that he was choosing a harder road, because he remembered, now, James' rising impatience and insult in the face of the English speaking handlers. Remembering more just made the insult worse, because the sense from the Russian memories always had so much more respect for what he could _do_ than these new ones had used. 

If he could not return to ones who used him properly, and he could not make sense of the memories that involved the man, the man who had made James so very _angry_ , then he would return to no one. He would find somewhere to hide, and run, for now, and decide what to do after.

He would make choices until James could breathe enough to decide for them as he used to.

If there was one thing he was good at, after all, it was hiding.

So that was what he'd do.


	8. Choices

One thing about running, about hiding, that he had forgotten for perhaps a little too long, was that such actions invited a chase.

And there seemed to be more than one party that wanted to catch him.

The first was the man, the mission that had caused his world to crumble to pieces around him. He'd been the one to offer in one hand and take away with the other without even understanding what he was doing. He was the one that stirred up memories that said to protect, to follow. He also stirred up memories that said he was unneeded, that he would be _left behind_. He stirred up James' rage and the Asset's distrust. He created confusion, and panic over what kind of person he _was_. 

Winter was too confused to deal with questions as to how moral he was, and what kind of person meant good or bad. 

Thus, when the man searched, he ran and didn't stop. He didn't dare allow himself to be caught because if he had no answers, then he knew that would inspire displeasure.

If the decades changed him, how would they have changed the man? 

What would be no longer tolerate? How would he punish those who made him angry?

The fight on the helicarrier was no example. The man had been doing his best to lure him in, to use sweetness to capture. He knew the trick, had used the trick on targets in the past. There was nothing that told him that such behavior would linger once he _had_ him.

So no. No. He would avoid the man, run and hide from him and his and regret nothing in doing so. He couldn't afford to be caught.

The second group were his handlers, the trainers and owners with whom he'd found solace and stability for so long. They were a known quantity to him, familiar and tempting, stability in a world that suddenly had none and a lack of choices that he craved so very much in a world where suddenly everything was a choice. 

He didn't know how to make choices. How could he be sure he was making one that was right if he made them himself? If there was no end goal as there were in missions, then how was anything he did at all justified to _anyone_? Of the two of them, it was James that yearned harder after returning. He didn't like not knowing if he was doing good or bad. He didn't like being uncertain of the consequences of his actions and if they were going to leave the world a worse place in his wake. 

Thoughts that clashed between American ideals, Russian practicality, and HYDRA's long-reaching goals left him lost, and at the very least, the owners would make it simple again. 

It was the Asset that kept them away from it. Not even because he didn't yearn for the same, no, but because he remembered something that James seemed to want to overlook.

He had been slated for decommissioning, and had been told as such.

To be disassembled, possibly put away and never taken out again.

To be _useless_ and obsolete.

They could not risk that.

The third group, the final group, was more nebulous. It was not one specifically so much as the face of many. 

It was the government. The underlying touch and tap of bureaucracy that wanted to pick him apart and find a new use for him, a new purpose and possibly, to punish him. There was no way to be sure. Of the three, this group made James the most wary and the Asset most intrigued. James didn't want another person on his list of those he was to obey when there was already one too many, but the Asset saw an opportunity for purpose, new and possibly terrible, but then, all of his owners had at some point been terrible.

The man had simply been the least terrible of those who had possessed him, if memory served to mean anything.

But finding out if any of them would be the ones that would help him, would improve him or put him back to use meant allowing himself to be caught by one. It meant making a choice. It meant taking a _side_.

And he couldn't. He couldn't do anything of the kind.

However, he had invited this chase. He had run, and in running asked to be chased.

That meant he would be caught.

He just... didn't know how to choose.

Because what if he chose _wrong_?

* * *

The world was changing around them. 

That had been true from the first moment they'd fled a past that was suddenly too much, too long, and too dark. 

But it was different, now. Once, many times, even, the world had changed between one breath and the next, between sleep and awake, but he'd never known _how_. He'd never properly _understood_.

There hadn't been enough context for understanding, before. Having that context now was new, terrifying. Knowing he was the cause of it, of so _much_ change, was staggering to him, to understand that he was not only a well used tool of history, but that history had ridden on his coattails in a way that he'd never thought would matter.

He remembered being told, more than once, that he was shaping the world, making it better, changing it. 

He hadn't understood what that meant.

It wasn't until he stole the right tech, figured out how to compensate with the advancements kept away from him in his last several wakings, that he started to really grasp what he'd done to the world. It was only when he began to navigate the information laid out on the screen of the computer he'd come to own that he could see his footprints leaving a bloody path from his birth to now. Not everything he'd done had an entry. Not everything he'd done could he even find a reference to at _all_.

It was the ones he couldn't find, but remembered, that frightened him most. Those were the ones that went the deepest, meant the most. They were the ones that had a change so slow and steady behind their doing that they stopped something beautiful or brilliant from ever being seen by anyone. Others, he knew, stopped something equally terrifying, something just as ugly and heinous from coming to light in the world.

He couldn't tell which was which.

And they went back so far. Before the Winter Soldier. Before Russian hands and words created a new foundation to who he was. 

They went back to Captain America. 

They went back to a man who history did its best to hide the carelessness of. That history downplayed in his willingness to be led from show to show for _so long_ until James Buchanan Barnes was brought to his attention. 

That was his fault too. He wasn't sure if it was good or bad, but his presence, just that, his _presence_ , was enough to mean that the man changed everything he was doing to come after him, to destroy the people who had him at the time. When before that he'd been content enough, it seemed, to do nothing at all in that war.

It seemed that that was how it was again. He wasn't unaware of the man ripping through everyone who was part of those who owned him before for information, of the man hunting him. He was alert to the fact that simply having been in their hands had stirred the man from dealing damage in major events only, to going after anything that seemed to breathe of his footsteps. 

It was admittedly both fascinating and terrifying. He'd thought, perhaps, that running would eventually shake the man's interest. 

Instead, it seemed to have done the opposite. It was pouring fuel on a fire he didn't even know he'd lit.

So he watched the news, and watched how he'd changed history again. 

He watched as the world shifted before his eyes instead of in a chatter of stop animation from frame to frame, point to point.

He watched, and knew that it wouldn't be long before he had to decide what his next move in history would be.

This time, he couldn't wait to be told.

He had to choose.

And it was terrifying.


	9. Names

The robots made everything strange. 

The world grew frantic, wild, the populace in distress and railing over what _those Avengers_ had done to the world. They screamed of the horrors while others yelled about their triumphs. Blame was cast and it overwhelmed everything. People didn't care about HYDRA, supposedly fallen and no longer an issue. 

People only wanted to find targets to blame.

And this time, it wasn't him.

The Asset actually thought it was funny. He'd rarely felt the lighter emotions, hadn't really had a reason to try to reach out to them and know them better, but in this situation he was the one who found the humor as James was just _irritated_ by it all. Perhaps it was the memories. They'd pieced together so many of them, now, had sorted out their timeline and took days sometimes to just sit and think, to relax in safety in some obscure building where no one looked for anything.

It made the Asset curious, and he'd gone looking, sifting for things that felt like they fit, not unlike shopping for clothes and tossing away anything he didn't feel fit correctly. The things he'd picked out of the pile weren't the things either of them expected. Tending bruises and cuts on the man, _Steve_ , had been one of the first things that he'd claimed for his own. Another had been a memory of braiding a little girl's hair. But not one of the Children, no, James guarded those memories with a fierceness that rivaled a dragon.

He didn't seem to care so much about the ones before, though there were a few he was more curious about than others. No, it was all the Asset searching, rummaging about. He quickly found he liked the memories where he was helping without killing. He liked being able to remember pulling people away from harm, or putting them together if they needed help. He liked the strange memories of _singing_ and _dancing_ and sitting to tea with empty cups to make a child smile. 

He liked how soft the memories were. He didn't have any soft memories before the crushing fall had happened on that last mission. He _knew_ that. It had always been James' realm, the softness and the humanity. He hadn't _been_ when the softness still existed for them, truly existed for them, so he was bewildered why James didn't _care_. 

Oh, he knew the memories too, but they weren't important to him. Instead, he clung more to the memories of the Children, of mission charm and late nights stealing from the kitchen because one of the girls was getting too skinny to safely train. The Asset didn't understand why those were the ones he valued most. Perhaps it was because they were what made him who he was now? He always _had_ had more of a sense of who he was, instead of simply being content to be a _what_ he was. 

So the Asset learned, and chose softness, squirreling away the frame of something more fascinating, more truly amazing, when James seemed to not particularly care, and he built something out of it. 

Useful, of course. He didn't see the point in clinging to any frame that wasn't of use, but being a creature that could make smiles and heal hurts he rapidly found to be just as good as being a creature of destruction and death. They were equally useful and he could be both. James could be in the middle, could be the center between the extremes that created who the Asset was becoming.

Because Asset didn't quite fit anymore, but he wasn't going to be Bucky. Neither of them could go back to being him, because he was complete, but alone, and while they had suffered, changed, and become more, neither of them wanted to go back to the constant sense of being alone inside oneself, of having no one behind them when things went badly.

So Bucky needed to rest. 

By the same token, they were both Winter. They had both killed and gathered their reputation together. Just one of them taking that title seemed... unfair. They both answered to it, both used it, so letting one claim it over the other was mean, selfish. Soldier might have served well enough, but that still belonged to James, even now that he no longer needed it. He had been the Soldier before he had been James, and thus, that name was not open for the taking.

If he did as James had done, he could pick up Buchanan, or Barnes, but he didn't like them. They were hard. Impersonal. 

Sergeant was no good for the same reasons.

It left him with a rather tiny pile of options and none of them were pleasing to him. If he were honest, they frustrated him, because he didn't want to only be the Asset anymore. He wanted a _name_. But it wasn't easy like it was for James. He was building himself from scratch, having been born years after James had already _been_ , and was gathering up memories so much later than James ever had to. 

He was formed in Russian hands.

That made him pause, to feel out his options, to look another way. The memories he most enjoyed placed him as... as something more. As a companion. A support. A _brother._

Those were the memories he'd liked. 

That was the role he still played, even inside himself with James. 

He liked that. 

So Russian for brother then. 

Of course, James thought it was hilarious when he relayed the decision, because the former Asset hadn't really considered what the word sounded like in _English_.

Still, he liked it anyway.

Brat would suit well enough.

* * *

James hadn't tried to influence the way his younger half shaped himself. Yes, he'd deliberately shunned some memories he thought might do his other self the most good, but he hadn't thought they'd be chased quite so _enthusiastically_. So, of course he'd willingly let him have practically everything to do with their childhood, with their sister and tending to a tiny Steve Rogers. It wasn't like he couldn't see them too, and it wasn't as though the Asset, pardon, the _Brat_ had ever asked for anything before. Ever.

It would take a while to get used to the hilarity of that being his other half's new name. Unruly child, ha. Hardly. Brother though, he seemed to do that well enough, so he saw why he wanted it, why he didn't want to be a thing anymore.

He'd shaken that off himself years ago, and he didn't regret it, even if it had caused so much pain at the time. So he was proud of him, for choosing something himself, for wanting to create something more than the engine of destruction and protector he'd fallen into being in their long life. 

Still. Brat. 

That wasn't even a _name_. 

But it made him smile, and laugh, and the Brat seemed _pleased_ with his reactions, so he didn't try to stop them, or reel it in. 

It was nice to feel the contented happiness from his other self. He'd never known he even wanted to know what it was like to bask in the reflected sensations before suddenly the Asset had changed, and emotions were everywhere, clean and new and strangely innocent. The Asset turning into the Brat was good. A new start. 

Something clean and untainted by pain, fear, and death.

Neither of them had had that since they were two instead of one, since before then even. There had always been fear and hunger, even in the good times of Bucky's memories, there was that edge, that caution that rode everything. The world had not been a good place when they had been that boy. Now, there was caution, definitely, but it was different. They weren't afraid for themselves. 

Why should they be? They were strong, stronger than they'd ever been, even. Strong enough that James was considering maybe bringing up Steve again, properly, soon. Of presenting the idea of him to the Brat again, to see if they were ready.

Now that the Brat was a someone, he didn't want to see him forget it. He wanted his other to get a chance to grow, to learn who he was. James had had that time, cherished what the Red Room had given him in becoming a person again, and he wouldn't lose it, but the Brat was more fragile.

He wasn't based on the foundation of Bucky the way James had always been. He was based on Sergeant Barnes, sniper of the Howling Commandos, and overall not a guy in the right position to be teaching anything of likes and dislikes in the midst of death and destruction. Not unless it had to do with guns at least.

No one would ever find a pickier and more critical gun connoisseur than the Brat. _That_ hadn't changed even with decades of lost memories.

Still, he knew he wouldn't let the governments or their old owners take them back. Not now. 

Now, he had to figure out how long they still needed before they could go to the closest thing they had to _home_.

And if he could convince himself they deserved it.


	10. Anxiety

He wasn't sure he liked Sam.

It wasn't because Sam didn't seem capable, or useful. No, it was because he _was._ It was frustrating, actually, how well he seemed to suit the needs that the Captain, Steve, had now when it came to combat. He covered the air, and could catch the man when he jumped off of stupid things. 

He could talk to him and he seemed to listen, to a degree, and he could admit to a sort of envy as he watched the byplay, as he surveyed the land. The man yielded easier than he remembered doing once, but he wasn't sure he could be that firm again, like he was when he was Bucky, so what if this man suited better, now?

Steve already had a companion in this man, someone to talk to and someone to watch his back. It snatched up just about every place that Winter had that he could _fill_ for him.

It made him hesitate even after he and the Brat had finally decided to observe and see, to consider making their way to the man that had shifted their world on its axis. What's the point of going somewhere where you have no place? Where your skills aren't needed and everything you could do was already filled by someone else, sometimes better than you were doing it?

What was the _point_?

He'd liked Natasha better. When Natasha was at his side, he simply felt comforted, reminded of how capable she was, and more than aware that a beautiful woman would never mean the same thing to Steve as a determined male friend. He knew such thinking was sexist, these days, but it wasn't meant to be. It wasn't a slight against Natasha at all. He just knew that Steve couldn't unsee someone beautiful as being so, no matter what, and she was, admittedly, in the same general direction of skills and terrifying to normal people as Steve had already shown that he liked to admire.

That was what made it different.

Sam seemed pretty enough, but he wasn't the sort that had ever turned Steve's head. He was more like him, who he'd been once, and he knew _he_ certainly hadn't gotten the kind of breathless awe that someone like Natasha would garner. 

So no, he wasn't happy with the trade. He wasn't happy with the difference and the shift in the dynamics between the two partners that he'd seen with the man.

He was far from thrilled at having what he was good at so effortlessly overtaken before he even had a chance to _try_.

That was why he wasn't sure he liked Sam.

He wanted to, because Steve, his memories told him, would always need a double dozen of people to keep him from dropping dead of any number of stupid ideas, but it was hard. 

He didn't like the sensation of having been replaced.

In fact, the sensation made him feel sick, something he wasn't sure that he had even been able to _feel_ for a long time. Years, if not decades, in fact. Not since he stopped being sensitive to death, to the destruction his two hands could bring down on the world, perhaps. He'd stopped flinching and feeling his stomach turn at things he had done, so why was the simple presence of someone else suddenly crippling to him this way? 

Why did it make him feel so terrible when nothing had for such a long time?

He didn't know, and he didn't like it. He didn't want it to be what it was, if he was honest, to know that he was going to keep being adrift if he didn't force himself to move forward, needed or not. 

He might not like Sam, but he kind of needed to.

It didn't look like the man was going away, after all.

* * *

Brat was glad that he wasn't the one that worried.

Just listening to James do it, feeling the persistent wash of frantic energy that went absolutely nowhere at all, was enough to exhaust him all by itself. He didn't know how the man was maintaining the high levels of anxiety for so long, actually, given that this had been building for months, and it was seeming to go nowhere at all.

He was, frankly, getting rather sick of it. 

For one, they couldn't be replaced. Their whole _point_ was their inability to be replaced. Yes, that was meant to be as a weapon, as a world-changing tool, but it was true for Steve too. Even if Steve only wanted him as a tool in the end, one didn't rip apart the world on a quest for something that they had already found a substitute for. And that was exactly what Steve seemed to be _doing_.

But there was no way to get James to see that, so he didn't try, instead leaving his other self to his useless spiral of anxious _jealousy_.

No, the only way to handle this was the way he'd always handled things that James had grown too emotionally overwrought to handle. He took the reigns of the body, made certain that James was secure in his bubble of emotional flailing, and then got to work. 

Russian pragmatism at its finest, really, and one of the core traits of _that_ life philosophy that he was more than happy to hang on to for the rest of eternity.

He was pretty sure that James probably wouldn't _agree_ , no, but it was fine if he didn't. It wasn't like they always did, or always would, and the more he grew, the more they clashed. 

That was good.

Of course, that also had the side effect that when one of them got an idea that the other might not like, then they should probably pay attention for the fall out that it might inspire.

Such as now. Brat was going to _resolve_ James' anxiety, because he was sick of it. They'd been watching, _hovering_ , over Sam and Steve for months now, and James kept reeling them in every time they might have approached.

He kept getting them to run away, and Brat was never quick enough to curb him before he did. He was, after all, the stronger of the two of them most days, so that meant if he had control, then it would be a bit of a fight to get him to _share_. Fleeing had thus made it so that sharing was not a priority at those particular moments in time, and had resulted in redoubled anxiety for James, to say nothing of a rather irritated night for Brat every time it happened.

If he'd been capable, he probably would have punched James by now just to get him to _knock it off_.

Instead, he took careful care to examine the path of Steve's destruction and figure out where his next target might be, as well as to scope out a viable location that was tangentially related to it that would suit his needs. Given that this was nothing particularly new, James didn't pay him much mind, content in his fretting.

If he'd been looking a bit closer, he would have realized that Brat was looking for different things than normal. 

Shame on him then, for being too upset to register it until it was much, much too late. Brat had left a few careful hints to angle the pair toward where he was going, fiddled with a piece of technology he knew he wouldn't be able to get out of without considerable help, and took a risk.

It wasn't exactly _comfortable_ to wait for the two to show up, no, and James threw an absolute _fit_ the moment he realized that Brat had basically tied them down in a position that would allow them to be caught by more than just Steve and Sam, but that was just fine.

They were done running away, damn it.

If he had to tie them down to do it, then that was just how it was going to go.


	11. Resolution

He didn't like ice. 

True, he'd never been the biggest fan of ice, once upon a time, and things that had happened since that initial dislike had hardly increased his appreciation... but this was different. This wasn't the reaction that he'd taken an odd comfort in for decades inside his mind.

 _This_ was getting ice in a drink and being perfectly calm where he was seated right up until the frozen water touched his lips. _This_ was having a moment of whited out vision where all he wanted was to throw himself away from the sensation, and ended up more or less doing that, to say nothing of dousing the other two in the process, as the cup broke all over the wall behind the other two and he knocked over his chair to roll away into a defensive stance. 

_This_ was him reacting to Steve's approach after he'd stopped moving by going limp on his knees as his blade clattered across the floor to freak out the poor waitress even _more_. It was about this point that even Brat, who had been content enough to let James have his _moment_ , registered the man's state and that he might be _furious_ about it. 

Steve hadn't been happy.

If anything, he seemed to be so furious about the whole thing he wasn't even able to speak, and that was when Sam, unknown quantity that he was, had to take over, actions more than words speaking to him because he was kind of unable to really understand words right at that moment. He just knew they fucked up, and there were no key phrases being used, and no one was striking him, so how was the behavior supposed to be corrected? What were they going to _do_ if that wasn't how it worked here?

Brat had frantically tried to find a memory, any memory, that said what Steve did when he was angry, at them especially, but while he found yelling, he hadn't found anything else. 

And Steve hadn't yelled. 

No, instead they'd been hauled back to the car, his blade very much not returned as Steve murmured something lowly at them that he frankly didn't have a chance in hell of actually grasping properly at that point, and it led to here, sitting subdued and quiet with apologies going unspoken on their tongue while Steve paced and Sam just _watched_ , a strange look that he could almost remember the meaning of on his face.

He'd stopped trying to slide down to the floor after Steve glared into the air over his head and put him back the first time. His hands had been gentle, but he was still radiating the caged fury, so he'd decided not to risk it twice. He wasn't an idiot. He was just... frightened.

When had he remembered how to be frightened? Or had he just never really forgotten and called it something else?

He wasn't sure. He just wished that Steve would just do whatever he was going to to punish him instead of being angry while using soft words and soft hands. He understood being yelled at, or hit, and nothing else wanted to get through. 

He was reluctant to let Brat out to handle the situation, having kept him carefully out of sight of these two so far, not wanting them to react to him, to do something to damage the fledgling personality that Brat had finally really started to have. But he was getting insistent, increasingly so, the more the tension ratcheted up in the air, and he knew he'd give in soon just because it was a _solution_ , and Brat always had known how to better take their punishments than he had. Maybe... he'd get this one sorted out too, and then they'd know what to expect?

Maybe?

That in mind, and cautiously hopeful that this would resolve itself, he turned over control fully and settled back to just watch.

Which somehow meant that Brat had to immediately give him a heart attack once it was too late to do anything about it.

Of course.

* * *

Brat had been more than willing to let James carry the load of who they were supposed to be in front of the two men.

At first. 

Unfortunately for James, he didn't seem to realize that the pair seemed to expect him to not be entirely who he'd been when Steve knew them last, and he kept trying to play up to the expectations that he assumed were there. Poorly, in Brat's opinion, but James hadn't much _asked_. Then again, James had never asked his opinion on his stupidity, so he didn't expect him to start now. 

Which meant during their little _situation_ in the diner, he'd let it play out, let his own reactions fall in line with James' panic as he tried to find anything that might serve as a point in favor of not doing so. Of course, not finding anything had made his own concern spark into proper fear for a moment too, and had led to James going on some kind of bizarre protective lockdown, but he'd been _listening_ while James most certainly had not been, and had actually somewhat grasped that Steve just wanted them to be _okay_.

No, all James saw was the pacing and growling and _anger_.

So he'd insisted on being out until James had panicked himself badly enough it was the only solution. Which was both awesome, and kind of _really pissed him off_ because Steve was being a fucking _moron_ , and freaking out his other self so badly was _not okay_.

Thus, the moment he was out, he decided to address this very _not okayness_ in a fashion he'd never been able to use before. 

With his words. 

"Are you done?" It was clipped accentless English that he used, his tone cold and _very_ not amused, and he was sure it was more _that_ than his words themselves that jerked the attention of the other two fully to him. Once he had it, and saw Steve's eyes widening in some kind of horrified worry, because he hadn't even tried to hide the change in his entire _demeanor_ with the flip either. He was probably freaking _them_ out now. Good.

"Bucky?" The murmur was from Steve, of course, his voice hesitant as he finally stopped his pacing and under the breath ranting. Sam just looked torn between bolting from the room and speaking. Smart man.

"No." The instant refute was something James should have done _ages_ ago, even if it did make Steve sort of retreat and straighten up like he was about to defend himself at once. "You nearly made James _cry_." 

Sam actually spoke up then while Steve floundered in having any reaction but confused shock, his surprise enough to override his wariness of being attacked. Then again, he was some sort of trained _something_ over there, so maybe he shouldn't have been so surprised after all. "James, but not you?"

"No. I know how to _listen._ " He jerked his head toward Steve. "This dick was using the right words with the wrong actions and James couldn't." He glared at Steve, who looked very much like he wanted to say something, anything, and had no idea how to start. So he didn't let him. "James is usually the one good with people, but I'm learning."

"You- but- Bucky." Steve's face was twisting up like he didn't know what to do with himself, but Brat just let him keep going, staring him down with an annoyed half glare as he sorted out his thoughts. He was patient. He knew how to wait, and Steve had ticked him off. "He- You keep calling the uh, person who was here a second ago James. And you're... not James? Not one person?"

He was actually catching on sort of quickly, and that made him wonder if that had anything to do with his experiences in this time, because nothing in his memories said he should have been able to sort this out so quickly. Maybe he'd missed one? Steve had always been the adaptable type. "We're Winter. He's James. I'm not."

The blond rocked on his heels, looking for all the world like he wanted to argue at them calling themselves Winter. Too fucking bad for him. "Do you have a name too? And. Um. How do you, uh, work?"

And there went Sam, making himself comfortable off to the side. Seems like the guy had decided to just let them talk it out. Damn it. At least they were still asking questions. He could answer questions easy enough. "I'm Brat." He said it with the proper Russian inflection, making it clear it was _not_ the English word it sounded like. He didn't bother to explain what it meant. He also didn't explain what they were because he had no idea how to do so.

Of course, of _course_ , there was that flicker of hilarity that James had indulged in for weeks in both their faces, but it was gone in a breath, controlled or set aside for another time. Steve, it seemed, had decided to be respectful. "Okay. So. Um. Brat." He was shit at the inflection. He kind of should have expected that. "You said I nearly made James cry." The way he said James sounded awkward, but at least Steve wasn't trying to fling Bucky at them again yet, and James was paying close attention to everything.

As he should be. He simply nodded to urge the man to keep going.

"Right. How? What was I doing that upset him like- like I did. I just wanted him to calm down."

"You didn't yell."

It was clear the answer wasn't the one Steve was expecting, and he reared back like he'd been slapped. "What? Why would I have yelled? You- _He_ was having a panic attack, or something like it. I wasn't going to yell at him for that."

Idiot. He clearly was dealing with a group of idiots, and wasn't sure he was actually excluded from that number himself. He spoke carefully, because he wanted to be sure he was clear. He knew how, had practice at it, but he didn't want this to happen over and over. "You were mad, we could tell. We caused it. We broke things and caused a scene. We should have been punished for the misbehavior and your anger and you did not. The memories... they say you yell when you're angry, and you did not do so. James was expecting an escalation to physical reprimand, and when that failed to occur, possibly something that required tools not present."

He didn't mean to go docile in his demeanor when Steve suddenly seemed furious again, but it must have been an obvious change, because Steve looked heartbroken at it, the flare of rage banked as the man took a deep, shaky breath, and seemed to have to physically make himself relax. He didn't fully trust it, wary that he'd managed to overstep himself, but when the blond didn't move, he cautiously looked from his hands back to his face. He wasn't used to being allowed to look people in the face and he found himself enjoying the defiance of it. It seemed to be what it took to get Steve talking again, at least. "I wouldn't. Buck- No. I'm going to just... use Bucky to mean you both, okay? I can't- I'll work up to Winter, I promise, but I can't. Right this second I can't."

He pressed his lips together, but nodded once, accepting it for the declaration it was. Steve relaxed, even if neither he nor James were particularly thrilled about the compromise. They'd either learn to like it, or they'd get Steve to knock it off. Only time would tell.

"Right. Okay. Bucky." And suddenly the man was _there_ , leaning into their space with the full weight of earnest sincerity that had Brat scrambling for James in self-defense. In retaliation for outing their duality, his other self pointedly denied his help. The _complete asshole_. He was glad he was feeling better, but he wasn't used to so much of... _whatever_ this emotion was being directed at him and didn't appreciate the lack of save. He must have twitched or _something_ , because the expression softened, and Steve very carefully picked up his hand, the flesh one, and cradled it in both of his. He didn't move away though. "I am going to be very very clear here. I will _never_ strike you because I'm angry. _Never_. I might yell, or get angry, but I'm not going to _hurt you_ because you make a mistake. Okay? I _won't_. If you need... need to feel, uh _disciplined_ , we can talk about that, but I- There will be no- I won't _abuse_ you Buck."

Brat stared at the man, expression blank as he tried to process this, trying to compare with James their impressions of the conversation. Both were equally relieved and bewildered. And perhaps a little suspicious. He couldn't help cutting a glance toward Sam, knowing there was a definite loophole there if Steve just didn't want to get his hands dirty. 

The man seemed to pick up on it, lifting his hands in a very clear 'woah' gesture. "Don't look at me pal, I'm not going to hurt you either. I'm here to help, not hurt, alright? I swear."

His gaze returned to Steve, who seemed gutted by the implications of the exchange, and his fingers tightened on the hand he had trapped. "Bucky. I'm not going to let _anyone_ abuse you. If anyone tries I'll rip them to pieces, alright?" That the man could say that in such a gentle, earnest tone was both incredibly convincing and sort of impressive. Brat approved, even though James was having some strange reaction that was torn between horrified and touched. "You're my friend. _Both_ of you are my friend. I don't care if you're more than you used to be, I'm not going to let anyone take you away again, okay? I won't."

Brat stared up into Steve's face, studying him, really taking in his sincerity, and realized that maybe, all those months ago, they'd been wrong to run away. 

Steve may not understand, not yet, but he would if they let him. 

So he gave the man the only answer he had, one that James was fully endorsing and that they were placing all of their considerable trust issues on. Because they meant it, both of them, even if Brat was the one who was going to say it aloud, this confirmation that they weren't going anywhere. That they were done fleeing from the man in front of them because of what they were.

"We believe you."

He knew by the look of relieved joy on the man's face that he got it, and it was enough.

Any other details weren't really that important, when all was said and done.

They were home now.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you, all of you who followed me on this journey. As I said at the beginning, this is my first muti-chapter work in this fandom, and the first one at all I wrote entirely on my own. You'll be seeing more of me in the future, but for now, it was good seeing you all.


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